


Immortals

by jedirangerpenguin



Series: Immortals - A Shepard and Anderson Series [4]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Anderson lives, Fix-It, Gen, Mass Effect 3, lalala I can't hear canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:20:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27440344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedirangerpenguin/pseuds/jedirangerpenguin
Summary: The one where Anderson lives.
Relationships: Female Shepard & David Anderson
Series: Immortals - A Shepard and Anderson Series [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2004064
Comments: 11
Kudos: 10





	Immortals

The view _was_ beautiful. Earth, from space. The dream of generations of humans before; the dream they had managed to save.

Not a bad way to go out.

The view started to fade. Anderson’s chin dropped toward his chest.

“Stay with me, Anderson.”

Anderson managed to pull his chin up, just slightly. Shepard’s voice was… sharp. There was too much fight in it, for the finish line.

Anderson heard her ripping his sleeve off more than he felt it. His head was getting too heavy to turn, but he managed to glance over. Shepard’s limbs slipped and shook as she tied… His eyes dropped down. A bandage.

He could have laughed. End of the line, and instead of taking a last moment of peace, Shepard was off to fix the next galaxy-sized problem.

Technically, bullet sized.

“Child.... child....” he breathed. If he couldn’t stop her now, she’d never breathe before she died. “Let g-”

One of Shepard’s hands hit him with her omni-tool. The other gripped his head and tipped him up to where he could see her. Anderson managed to focus on her face. End of the world, end of the galaxy, hadn’t taken the fire out of her eyes. She fixed him with the relentless fervor that had knocked away every obstacle she’d ever met.

“Like. Hell.”

~

Anderson came to with a profound stabbing pain through his abdomen. He’d expected to wake up in the afterlife, if there was one. But if he was in heaven, clearly, there had been false advertising.

He opened his eyes—he definitely wasn’t sitting in the black of space anymore—and blinked a couple times. The bright white haze in front of him sharpened into a white tile ceiling. Too bland to be the afterlife. Strike two.

Anderson heard footsteps and lifted his head up. He couldn’t withhold a sharp groan as pain rippled down his entire body.

“Good to see you awake, Admiral.”

A figure in a white lab coat stood beside him with a clipboard. Looked like a doctor. No need for doctors in the afterlife.

Strike three. That meant-

“Shepard.” Anderson’s voice sounded... rusty. He’d worry about that later. “Where’s Shepard?”

The doctor held a hand up. “She’s fine. She’s in the next wing.”

Anderson started sitting up. “I have to see her.”

The back of a clipboard appeared in his face. If Anderson hadn’t nearly died, it wouldn’t have fazed him. But apparently, he had.

Nearly.

“I’ll send for her,” the doctor said firmly. “ _You_ are staying right there. I’d get comfortable, because you’re not leaving anytime soon.”

Anderson wanted to argue. God, he wanted to jump up, bullet be damned, and tear through the hospital until he found her.

But Shepard was alive. He wasn’t back in the Council chambers, searching through the hunks of Sovereign for the sure-footed Shepard legacy who’d wormed her way into his heart in a matter of weeks. According to the doctor, at least, Shepard was okay.

He gave in and settled back. Everything hurt too much to think. Much less move. He did manage to look back up at the doctor.

“We won, I assume?”

The doctor smiled. “We won.” She turned on the tv on the wall across from him, then set the remote on the table beside him. “You can see for yourself. I’ll go call something up for your pain.”

“Mm. Thank you.”

The doctor walked out. Anderson carefully adjusted himself to the most comfortable position he could find, then turned his attention to the screen.

The images of smoke and rubble that greeted him first weren’t exactly a picture of victory. But the lack of shambling Husks, of Reapers silhouetted against the stars, the lack of gunshots and laser beams and haggard despair on every face, told the real story. 

Earth was free. They had a hell of an uphill climb in front of them, but they’d won the chance to take it.

 _Shepard_ had won them the chance to take it.

A rapid clacking interrupted his thoughts, and Anderson looked up. Shepard paused in the doorway. She leaned on crutches, with healing burns up one side of her neck, wearing a grin that could reach Palaven.

“About time, old man.”

Anderson grinned in return. He would have laughed, if it weren’t for the knives in his lungs. “Is that any way to talk to a superior officer?” he managed instead.

“I’ve been up five days already!” Shepard said as she started clacking her way into the room.

Anderson pulled in a breath to try to match Shepard’s energy, but the air snagged on his airways and he coughed instead. He might have to put keeping up with Shepard on hold for a bit. “Can you blame me?” he asked jokingly. “You shot me.”

“Get over it,” Shepard replied without missing a beat. “I wasn’t the only one.” Anderson couldn’t keep from laughing at that one. “Do I get a medal for saving your ass?”

“Don’t you have enough medals already?”

Shepard reached the side of his bed and unceremoniously dumped one of her crutches. She reached her free arm down and pulled him into a hug.

Anderson easily returned her embrace. Well, maybe not _easily_. The doctor hadn’t returned with his meds yet, after all. But he held her close, propriety and regulations be damned. 

They’d won. After months of wondering if they’d ever succeed, the Reapers were gone. And on top of that, they were _alive_. Both of them.

He’d known Shepard wouldn’t let them down.

“I am _so_ proud of you,” he murmured.

Shepard’s grip tightened. They’d embraced a number of times over the years, and Shepard had never been what anyone would call “gentle.” But the change in her grip had a... tension, a desperation, that was immediately worrying.

“Shepard?”

Anderson waited through the silence, then finally heard a sob instead of a reply. He pulled back enough to see the tears running down Shepard’s face. 

Maybe he wasn’t the only one a little out of sorts from nearly dying.

“Shepard? What’s wrong?”

The splotchy redness in her face deepened. She searched for enough air to answer him, and seemed to be coming up short.

“I... I shot you,” she eventually said. “I didn’t...”

“Child. It wasn’t your fault.”

“You almost died.”

The steady flow of tears threatened to extinguish the ever-present fire that lived in her eyes. He supposed it shouldn’t have surprised him. As long as he’d known Shepard, she’d hopped from galaxy-sized problem to galaxy-sized problem, and when she picked a goal, she never deviated course until it was complete.

Her last target had been saving his life. How much of the past days had she spent in the spot she stood in now, spinning her gears down to nothing because, for the first time, she was faced with a problem she could do nothing to fix?

“Almost. But I _didn’t._ Shepard.” He summoned the energy to reach up and brush a tear off her chin. “I’m here. We’re _both_ here, and that’s thanks to you. And you saved the galaxy to boot. Damn it, you should be out there celebrating, not sitting here crying over an old man.”

“I am the _only one_ who gets to call you an old man, old man.”

Anderson chuckled. Despite the tears still running, Shepard managed a bit of a smile. Good. “Then quit your crying,” Anderson replied. “You’ve seen worse than this a thousand times and never shed a tear.”

“Only because you stop me every damn time.”

It was technically true. Shepard had always hated vulnerability. Easier on her if he could steer her away from a breakdown, instead of-

“Would you just let me have this one?”

Anderson scanned her face. No set jaw, no flickering anger, no coil winding and ready to lash out. Just a lot of tears, and no walls.

Maybe the end of the Reapers had made it easier for her to feel vulnerable, to admit she was human, and be okay with it. Or maybe, just maybe, this new mentality was something reserved for him.

Either way was fine.

Anderson smiled faintly, then pulled her back into a hug, which she willingly returned. Regardless of the reason, if Shepard was letting those walls down, maybe she could finally find a moment to breathe.

Maybe they both could.

“Alright.”

**Author's Note:**

> I set up this sandbox and couldn’t keep from playing in it. The next work in the series is a fluffy postwar Anderson Lives fic, if that’s your style!
> 
> Happy N7 day!


End file.
